The ribbon had all the settings for the OS, and was always a click away. Finder worked out of the box. These days, copy-paste is hit or miss, and the window manager can’t be reliably controlled via the keyboard.
Also, even in first party apps, keyboard shortcuts are completely inconsistent. Command-0 no longer reliably restores the main window. In maps, Command-L doesn’t focus the location bar like it does in safari; it repositions the map to your GPS location.
Even the keyboard is a shitshow. Notes aggressively autocorrects technical terms to random words on the latest MacOS, but nothing else does, and I can’t find the second “turn off autocorrect” setting that it must be using instead of the OS-wide one (which is definitely disabled).
Current OS X’s UI and filesystem layout are a cruel parodies of OS 9. It’s like a bunch of Shoggoths or an army of slightly better LLMs tried to recreate OS 9, borg-style.
Apple mostly adds software features by acquiring stuff, storyboarding UIs, demoing a prototype to an exec, and then shipping it, so I guess that’s how it got so weird.
sure, there are inconsistencies, but with some global shortcuts in your muscle memory and a few years of using spotlight under your belt... OSX out of the box is fast and efficient as hell.
But I will relent and acknowledge that your arguments ring very true. How do I get my Messages window back if I accentally close it? Very good point.
The ribbon though? I think your memory is optimistic. It was in my memory ugly, clunky, slow and had some, but few system settings. But I must admit that in my heart OS 7.1 was the high water mark of usability and I resented all subsequent innovations... which it sounds like you might be able to empathize with.
Now imagine that the thing in the OP has even less finesse than what you call a bunch of Shoggoths. More like putting lipstick on a earthworm.
All those projects, hellosystem, this one, I guess I've seen one or two more before — all of them are just kind of missing the whole point.
I would say the current KDE Plasma is somewhat starting to approach any amount of finesse at all. Hope they continue, at least they've learned from the whole KDE4 kerfuffle.
The ribbon had all the settings for the OS, and was always a click away. Finder worked out of the box. These days, copy-paste is hit or miss, and the window manager can’t be reliably controlled via the keyboard.
Also, even in first party apps, keyboard shortcuts are completely inconsistent. Command-0 no longer reliably restores the main window. In maps, Command-L doesn’t focus the location bar like it does in safari; it repositions the map to your GPS location.
Even the keyboard is a shitshow. Notes aggressively autocorrects technical terms to random words on the latest MacOS, but nothing else does, and I can’t find the second “turn off autocorrect” setting that it must be using instead of the OS-wide one (which is definitely disabled).
Current OS X’s UI and filesystem layout are a cruel parodies of OS 9. It’s like a bunch of Shoggoths or an army of slightly better LLMs tried to recreate OS 9, borg-style.
Apple mostly adds software features by acquiring stuff, storyboarding UIs, demoing a prototype to an exec, and then shipping it, so I guess that’s how it got so weird.
Anyway, I wouldn’t say the result has finesse.